Research Methods in Digital Food Studies

Jonatan Leer, Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager, Jonatan Leer, Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367819279
• eBook ISBN: 9781000364309
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book offers the first methodological synthesis of digital food studies. It brings together contributions from leading scholars in food and media studies and explores research methods from textual analysis to digital ethnography and action research.

In recent times, digital media has transformed our relationship with food which has become one of the central topics in digital and social media. This spatiotemporal shift in food cultures has led us to reimagine how we engage in different practices related to food as consumers. The book examines the opportunities and challenges that the new digital era of food studies presents and what methodologies are employed to study the changed dynamics in this field. These methodologies provide insights into how restaurant reviews, celebrity webpages, the blogosphere and YouTube are explored, as well as how to analyse digital archives, digital soundscapes and digital food activism and a series of approaches to digital ethnography in food studies. The book presents straightforward ideas and suggestions for how to get started on one's own research in the field through well-structured chapters that include several pedagogical features.

Written in an accessible style, the book will serve as a vital point of reference for both experienced researchers and beginners in the digital food studies field, health studies, leisure studies, anthropology, sociology, food sciences, and media and communication studies.

1
Doing digital food studies

Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager and Jonatan Leer

Digital media has dramatically changed our relationship to food and food has become a predominant topic on digital and social media (Hu, Manikonda, & Kambhampati, 2014; Lewis, 2018). However, the literature on digital food studies is still relatively limited, despite innovative works appearing particularly since 2016 (maybe most importantly Leer & Povlsen, 2016; Lewis, 2020; Lupton & Feldman, 2020; Rousseau, 2012; Schneider, Eli, Dolan, & Ulijaszek, 2018). These works explore a range of issues such as how are new forms of food-political activism enabled on digital media? Or how are new digital practices integrated in our food practices from shopping to eating and evaluating food?

For instance, food photography and sharing images of what you eat have become an everyday activity – often mimicking the aesthetics of professionals and commercial food texts (Holmberg, Chaplin, Hillman, & Berg, 2016). Thus, the social act of eating has become closely related to the act of visually representing what you eat. The normalisation of sharing images in real time forces us to rethink the temporal and spatial boundaries of the meal. This additional ritual to the social act of eating together demonstrates how new digital technology not only facilitates the circulation of food representations but also shapes and transforms the way we eat and relate to food and meals.

Furthermore, food photography constitutes a form of productive consumption where the user becomes a “produser” (Bruns, 2008). The act of consumption is both personalised and distributed and the boundaries between producer and consumer are blurred. Also, aesthetic variations and taste serve to create social communities and mark boundaries to other communities following the Bourdieusian logic of food as a means to social distinction (Naccarato & Lebesco, 2012). It might be too simplified, however, to understand food photography merely as an act of social distinction. The digitalisation of food reaffirms affective relations and becomes a platform for affective expressivity (Lewis, 2018).

The digitalisation of food consumption is heavily debated. Is the digital era an age of liberation, global connectivity, and endless choices for the contemporary consumer? Or, rather, are the new digital tools just a sophisticated way of getting even closer to the dominance of big capitalism due to their digital surveillance and ability to manipulate the consumer in the most intimate manner? While this is a difficult argument to settle once and for all and, as both sides contain elements of truth, we must acknowledge that the digital age forces us to rethink food consumption and the role of the consumer.

As argued by Schneider et al. (2018), the digital era offers new forms of agency, connectivity, and activism across social and national boundaries that would have been far more difficult or time-consuming in the past. However, there are many kinds of digital food activism and these should always be considered in their political context as “diverse forms of digitally mediated practices of food activism” (p. 3). Also, the digital age offers new economic structures and new types of “alternative food politics” (Phillipov & Kirkwood, 2018) and these disrupt the traditional foodscapes and food systems through, for instance, alternative food networks and online shopping.

It seems fair to say that the literature on digital food studies has mainly focused on describing how the digitalisation of food practices have significantly transformed the mundane political and cultural aspects of food. We believe that the digital epoch of food studies also poses significant methodological challenges and potentials. In terms of potentials, the digital age offers new kinds of data sets (online debates, restaurants reviews, social media, etc.) as well as new kinds of tools to recruit informants and access material across the planet. In terms of challenges, the endless and ever-expanding platforms and amounts of new information can seem bewildering. These digital spheres are thus difficult to navigate with traditional research techniques and theories.

Also, how can we reconceptualise some very basic concepts previously taken for granted such as the concept of “text,” which, in the context of social media, is no longer “fixed,” but constantly evolving through new textual practices such as sharing, deleting, or commenting. This prompts fundamental epistemological discussions of hermeneutics and traditional semiotic models of communication as well as more instrumental issues of how to do research designs within the “digital.” The “digital” also obliges researchers to revisit the ethical codex guiding their research and the way they interact with informants.

In this volume, we focus specifically on these methodological challenges and potentials and we draw on Jensen’s understanding of “methodology” as a strategic level of analysis that connects practical matters with theoretical issues (Jensen, 2012), contrary to “methods” as concrete techniques for gathering and analysing data. Thus, the volume provides an overview of the research methods within digital food studies emphasising the concrete “how-to” dimension of doing digital food studies and supplementing this with methodological considerations. Hence, it appeals to both students and researchers in the social sciences and humanities as well as in the fields of nutrition and health and, of course, food studies, and gastronomy.

Digital food as a research interest and research area is relatively new and it arises from several different disciplines that draw on different methodological foundations. Consequently, the array of methods and tools being applied within digital food studies is diverse. However, we have identified four areas or approaches which characterise the field in general: textual analysis, digital ethnography, users’ ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Doing digital food studies
• Part 1: Textual analysis
• Part 2: Digital ethnography
• Part 3: Users’ practices
• Part 4: Digital archives and network analysis
• Afterword: Future methods for digital food studies
• Index